It Comes With a Price
by Scrawlers
Summary: He survived a God's attack, or so they say, but he thinks it would probably sound a helluva lot more impressive if he had a clue of what any of it meant. [AU for the Battle City finals]


**Notes:** The beginning of this fic is based loosely off my recollection of how this scene was handled in the anime. It's an AU regardless, and so events/dialogue/et cetera are changed anyway, but if this feels a bit off, that's why. In addition, I realized when I was just about finished writing that I'm pretty sure the Alcatraz tower elevator opens up into a corridor which then leads to the roof, based on what I remember of Isis confronting Seto in the manga, but I decided that since I was nearly done with it anyway to just go with what I had. Please just accept it.

All right, that should be all. Let's get to it.

* * *

 **This is a Gift; it Comes With a Price**

* * *

Beeping. Something is beeping. That's the first thought that registers in his brain. The second is that his throat hurts like a bitch.

Everything is heavy. That's the third thought. Everything—his . . . arms, his legs, his _chest_ , oh god, his chest—is heavy, weighted, dragged _down_ —and he doesn't know what it means, what any of it means, except he thinks that it's probably all related. The weight pulling him under, the burning in his throat, the beeping—all of it is related. Somehow he thinks that maybe this has something to do with water—maybe he drowned, or is drowning—and some part of his brain is satisfied with that answer, except that answer covers everything except the beeping.

That steady, constant, _annoying_ beeping, like an alarm.

 _Five more minutes,_ he thinks, and that's the last thing he thinks for awhile.

* * *

The beeping is loud. It's the first thing he's aware of again, the pain in his throat is the second—and this time, the third is that it's somehow hard to breathe, like something is stuck _in_ his throat and, oh, that's probably why it hurts, isn't it, because he's choking to death on something and he's just lying there like an idiot while he dies.

 _Get it out_ is the only thing he can think as his hands scramble at what he thinks is his face, but it feels weird—hard, plastic, not like he thinks his skin should feel, not like he thinks his _face_ should feel. His fingers feel numb and clumsy as he grasps at it, and his grip keeps slipping as he tries to pull it off, but whether it's because the thing is stuck or he lacks the strength to pull it free, he's not sure. Maybe both, but that won't stop him from trying.

But the hands will, and as if it wasn't bad enough that he couldn't breathe, that he was choking, that he was _dying_ , he suddenly has hands pinning him down, on his chest, on his wrists, dragging his hands down by his side, away from his face. He pulls against them—he has to get the thing, he has to, but he can't with them holding him down, can't they see that? The beeping is louder now, he thinks—louder and faster. That's probably a bad sign. He pulls harder against the hands pinning him down.

"— _ar me? We're going to get this out now, but . . . ave to b . . . eathe . . ."_

Breathe. That's the only word that matters to him, and he can't even be sure he heard that correctly. Everything but the beeping sounds muffled, far away. But sudden fatigue floods him again, weighing him down, sapping the strength from his body. The voice—it was a voice, however far away—told him to breathe. He can do that. He will try.

" _Ready?"_ the voice says, and now it, too, is louder. Things seem lighter, brighter, louder—and he thinks, isn't seeing light supposed to be a bad sign? _"Three, two_ _—breathe!"_

It's less like being pulled from underwater and more like being slammed into an oncoming semi truck. As the thing is pulled from his throat he gasps, coughs, and sputters for air, and every sense hits him at once in a burst of clarity so violent it makes his entire body—but especially his head, he thinks, his head and his throat—throb. He can't stop coughing; his eyes burn every time he opens them because the room is so damn bright, fluorescent bulbs acting more like bright white daggers, and it's all he can do to stare at the—his, to stare at _his_ jeans instead of up where the light can assault him. It hurts, everything hurts. His head, his chest, and especially his throat as he takes deep, shuddering gasps, each breath ripping like fire down his—

. . . _like_ _fire_ . . .

There's something there, he thinks. Something about–something about _fire,_ maybe that this is a result of it, but he looks at his hands and sees no burns, sees no soot on his jeans, and he thinks that maybe he imagined it, maybe everything is fine, despite the pain. He doesn't smell smoke, either. Maybe there isn't—

" _Big bro_!"

He barely has time to turn before someone—a girl—has thrown herself on him, her arms locked around his neck, her face pressed against the crook of his neck. He's still seated on the—the bed, he realizes, a hospital bed, and so the positioning is awkward, but she doesn't seem to care. Her hair is long and reddish brown, and it takes him a second to register what it is that she said.

 _Big bro?_

"Now, now, don't get too excited—I still need to run a few examinations . . ." a man on the other side of the bed says. The man is wearing a long white coat and carrying a clipboard, which means that he must be . . . a doctor. The doctor is looking straight at him. "How are you feeling? Are you able to breathe okay? Sorry about the panic; we had to intubate you, though come to that, it's a wonder you regained consciousness so quickly. Just an hour ago . . ."

"I, uh . . ." Oh, it burns, his throat _burns_ and his voice is raspy enough to match it. He tries to swallow, but his mouth is too dry, and before he can ask a small paper cup filled with water is thrust in front of his face. He looks up, and sees that a girl with short, dark hair is holding it out to him.

"Here," she says, and she smiles, but her eyes look wet. "This will help."

"Oh—thanks." He takes the cup with shaking fingers, and as she lets go she lifts her hand to rub at her eyes. As he sips at the water in the cup—and he wants to chug it, thinks maybe he should, but thinks better of it when he realizes that it's still a little hard to breathe—he does his best to focus on the room around him.

It's a hospital room of some sort—like an infirmary, it looks like. His isn't the only bed. There's a woman in a bed adjacent to him, a bald man in another bed over. Not counting the (hopefully) unconscious people, there are five other people in the room with him. The girl with the reddish brown hair is still seated on his bed with him despite the doctor's orders, her arms held loosely around his neck, her head against his shoulder. Aside from both her and the doctor, there are three other people huddled around his bed, and he figures that these guys are probably the ones that held his arms down while the doctor did whatever-was-done to get the whatever-it-was out of his mouth. One is the girl with short hair who'd handed him the cup of water; one is a tall guy with brown hair spiked up in front; and the other is a guy with long black hair and dice earrings that looks like some kind of pop idol or diva.

They are all staring at him, he realizes, as he drains the rest of his cup to avoid looking at them for a second longer. Spike, Short Hair, and Diva Boy are all staring at him, and two out of the three of them look like they've been crying.

Maybe it would have been better to stay asleep.

"It's a miracle," the doctor—Doc, that was a better name for him—says, and he looks over to see that Doc is staring at the monitors in bewilderment. "As far as I can tell you've made a full recovery, but how . . . ?"

"You don't know this guy's luck," Spike says, and despite how red his eyes look, he's grinning a smile that could rival the damned lights above their heads. "I told you he'd pull through, I told you—"

"You didn't sound so optimistic when you were screaming at the doctor and Mokuba earlier," Diva Boy says, and Spike glares at him.

"Shut it, you were just as worried as I—and hey, actually, about that." Spike whirls back to the bed, a dark glower twisting his expression, and yep, it definitely would have been better to stay asleep, only there must be some kind of record for making someone that pissed off not five minutes after waking. "What the Hell, Jounouchi? Do you know how worried we were? Your sister was bawling her eyes out! What the Hell did you keep us waiting for, huh?"

"Uh . . . " Shit, what's he supposed to say to that? ". . . sorry?"

" _Sorry_?" Spike repeats, and he throws his hands in the air. "All that, you nearly die, and all you can say is _sorry_?"

He doesn't know what to say to that, either, because what else is he _supposed_ to say, only it finally sticks in his brain that it sounded like Spike had called him something. What was it—Jounouchi? Was that—?

"He fought as hard as he could," says the girl—his sister, he thinks, if her calling him _'big bro'_ and what Spike just said mean anything—seated beside him. Sis wraps her arms more tightly around him, and he squeezes the paper cup in his hand as a jolt of pain spikes down his shoulder. "And he made it back, so there's no need to yell at him for it. It wasn't his fault."

"Yeah," he says, more because he wants Spike to stop yelling at him than because he agrees with Sis that whatever-it-was wasn't his fault.

Spike deflates in the face of her anger. "Well—yeah, you're right," he says. "But—!"

"Give it a rest," says Short Hair, and Diva Boy snorts.

"Unless you want to try punching him again," he says sarcastically. "I'm sure that would really help Jounouchi's condition a whole lot."

There's that name again. Jounouchi. That has to be his, then. It sounds right, anyway, like it fits, and even if it doesn't and it isn't, that is what they are all calling him, so it has to be right. He smiles a little. Jounouchi. Yeah, that's a good enough name for now.

Jounouchi had tuned out what the others were saying, and so he doesn't have time to catch up on what Spike said to Diva Boy before Short Hair shushes them both. She looks back to Jounouchi with a warm smile.

"Anyway," she says, and she wipes at her eyes again, and he really wishes she would stop because it's stressful having people cry when you can't figure out what they're all crying about, "we're just really glad you're okay."

"Yeah," he says, for lack of anything else to say, and Spike looks incredulous again before Jounouchi asks, "so, uh . . . why . . . am I okay?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Doc says, and Jounouchi had almost forgotten about him, to be entirely honest. Doc scratches at his head as he flips through papers on his clipboard. "Of course, I'll need to do a more thorough examination, but—"

"It's a miracle, isn't it?" Sis asks. "That's what you said."

"Well, yes, but I didn't mean—miracles don't actually—"

"He survived a straight on attack from an Egyptian God," Diva Boy says flatly. "I'd say that's pretty miraculous."

"Whoa, wait—what?" Jounouchi asks. All eyes turn to him, but he keeps his focus on Diva Boy, given that Diva Boy was the only one to answer his question (but then, he figures, maybe his question wasn't really clear). "An Egyptian . . . _what_?"

"You . . . don't remember?" Short Hair asks, and she's frowning now. Jounouchi shakes his head.

"It was Malik's Egyptian God Card," Sis says quietly, and Jounouchi looks over to see that she's staring down at her knees now, chewing on her bottom lip. "It was in your duel against him. He used his Egyptian God Card, and you . . ."

"His Egyptian God . . . card," Jounouchi repeats, and for some reason his brain feels stalled on that word. Everyone in the room stares at him in silence for a minute before Spike speaks.

"Yeah, dude," he says. "The Sun God Ra. He summoned it, used its special ability . . . you took a direct attack. You really don't remember?"

"I . . . no." Jounouchi's head pounds again, and he presses the heels of his palms into his eyes. The darkness is a nice reprieve from the unholy brightness of the lights, but even that doesn't help much against the pain. He opens his eyes again to squint at them. "I'm . . . confused. How could . . . you said it's a _card_?"

"Uh . . . yeah," Diva Boy says, and Jounouchi presses the heels of his palms into his eyes again, trying to think.

He feels like shit. Well, actually, he feels like he was thrown face first into an oncoming semi truck, flung fifty feet from the impact, run over by the semi truck, and then maybe backed over again. Everything hurts. This is why he can't imagine how a _card_ could do this to him. When he thinks of cards—when he tries to figure out what they mean by that, because obviously they're talking about something he doesn't understand—he thinks of birthday cards, or greeting cards, or playing cards. But he can't see how even an entire _deck_ of cards could land him in the _hospital_ , and anyway, what do Egyptian Gods have to do with playing cards? Or with birthday cards, for that matter? And how could a card attack him? Maybe if they were talking about an actual god—

But no, that wouldn't make sense either, he thinks. Gods aren't . . . are gods real?

His head throbs again, and he feels a bit dizzy as he pulls his hands away from his eyes. Maybe now's not the time to get into philosophy.

"Severe trauma can sometimes cause temporary retrograde amnesia related to the incident itself," Doc says, and Jounouchi thinks that maybe this is a bit more than that, but he doesn't have time to say it before Doc says, "Of course, I'll need to do further examinations to see if that's _all_ it is, and to do that, I need _space_. All of you, please clear out."

At once, Sis, Spike, and Diva Boy start arguing, and Jounouchi puts a hand to his head as it pounds again in protest at their volume, because _ow_.

"You can see him _after_ ," Doc says, and wow, it really doesn't help when Doc raises his voice to speak over them. "But I need the room to actually _care_ for my patient, so if you will all please _leave_ —"

"He's right," Short Hair says, and Jounouchi thanks whatever gods might or might not exist (except for the one that apparently landed him here, because seriously, fuck that god in the face) for her good sense. She smiles at him. "We can go watch Yuugi duel."

"What, and just _leave_?" Spike asks.

Short Hair rolls her eyes. "Jounouchi will want to come join us after the doctor's done looking him over, I'm sure of it. We'll see him soon."

"Yeah," Jounouchi says, though like when he agreed with Sis before, it's more to get the arguing and yelling to stop than anything else. Spike looks a bit disappointed, but he finally relents with a nod.

"All right," he said. "But you better haul ass up there soon, got it? Yuugi needs you there practically more than any of us."

"Can't wait to see the look on his face," Diva Boy says, and he grins. "Hey, let's not tell him, all right? Let's let it be a surprise. Agreed?"

"Yeah, yeah," Short Hair says, before she looks back at the bed. "Shizuka, are you coming?"

Sis starts a little, and finally pulls her arms from around Jounouchi's neck. "I . . . suppose," she says slowly. "If I have to . . ."

"I'm sorry, but I really do need to give your brother a thorough examination, and I can't do that if you're hanging off him," Doc says, and as Sis nods, Jounouchi realizes it.

Shizuka. That was what Short Hair said, right? Shizuka? And Sis responded, which means—

"Okay," Sis—Shizuka—says, and when Jounouchi looks over at her, she smiles. "I'll wait right outside, okay?" she says. "That way we can go up to the Duel Tower together."

Jounouchi stares at her. Her hair is reddish brown, her eyes are hazel. She's his sister. His little sister, he thinks, because she called him _'big bro'_ before, and if he's _'big,'_ that means she's _'little.'_ She's his little sister, and her name is Shizuka, but she's . . .

He stares at her, and _stares_ at her, and only once she starts to look a bit confused and worried does he nod.

"Yeah," he says. "I'll see you outside when the doc is done."

Shizuka smiles again, but as she climbs off the bed and leaves the room with the others, Jounouchi feels no less confused, and maybe a little more panicky, than before.

* * *

Doc's examination is pretty quick. He checks Jounouchi's pulse, his breathing. Does some reflex tests, applies pressure to Jounouchi's ribs (which still hurt like a mother, thanks, and Jounouchi could have told Doc that _before_ he started applying the pressure), checks the monitors again, and again, and _again_. Jounouchi is pretty fed up by the time the Doc finally says that, well, he doesn't know how it's possible, he's pretty sure he's seen everything now, but aside from residual soreness from CPR and the intubation, Jounouchi seems to be just fine.

"It's a miracle," Doc says, and he sounds so tired. Jounouchi can relate. "Kaiba-sama might not believe in miracles and he'll have my job if he hears me say it, but . . . well, anyway. You're free to go, Jounouchi-kun."

"Thanks," Jounouchi says, and he eyes Doc's clipboard again. "Hey—those papers have my info on 'em, right?"

Doc pauses by the foot of the bed and nods. Jounouchi holds out his hand as he asks, "Can I see?"

"I . . . suppose." Doc gives him a bewildered look, but hands over the clipboard. Jounouchi starts rifling through the papers. "I don't know why you want to. I already told you everything relevant pertaining to your condition."

"Yeah, yeah." The chart says his full name is Jounouchi Katsuya. He's sixteen, his birthday is on January 25th. His blood type's B. The emergency contact section lists only one name under immediate family for him: Kawai Shizuka. Shizuka . . . that's his sister, isn't it? But her family name is different. Maybe she's not really his sister, then, or maybe she's adopted. Maybe _he's_ adopted, but he's older, so he thinks it must be her. Doesn't matter anyway, he thinks. If she's his sister, then he'd better act like her brother.

He hands the clipboard back over when the papers shift into pure medical jargon. "Thanks," he says, and he swings his legs over to hop off the bed. God, how long was he out? His muscles feel so stiff . . .

"You're welcome," Doc says. "Take care, okay? Stay out of those duels that are going on up there. Last thing we need is to land you back in here. Same goes for everyone else, really. Try to talk some sense into them, okay? And don't let them use your evidently miraculous recovery as an example."

"Okay," Jounouchi says, though he doesn't really see how he has the right to let anyone do—or not do, he guesses—anything. He pauses with his hand on the door handle, frowning.

Apparently deadly cards, Egyptian Gods, and now some kind of 'duels.'

What the Hell kind of place _is_ this?

"Is everything all right?" Doc asks, and he sounds worried. Jounouchi realizes he hasn't moved from the door.

"Yeah," Jounouchi says, and he tries to clear his throat to get the raspiness out of it. It doesn't work. "I'll, uh . . . see you later, Doc."

"Please don't," Doc says, but Jounouchi just forces a grin over his shoulder before he steps out into the hallway.

As she promised, his maybe-adopted sister Shizuka is waiting for him. She had sat down at the base of the wall, but she pushes herself to her feet as Jounouchi shuts the door behind him, and her smile is as bright as the sun.

"What did the doctor say?" she asks. "Is everything okay?"

"It's a miracle, apparently," Jounouchi says, and before he can do anything about it she's thrown herself at him in another hug, her arms tight around his neck, though this one is thankfully brief given she's not tall enough to reach him without jumping.

"Thank god," she breathes, and she takes his hands in hers as she pulls away. Her smile is shaking, but thankfully, she doesn't start to cry. "I was so—well, we were all so—but I'm just so glad you're . . ." She swallows, and tucks her hair behind her ear before she beams at him again. "I knew you'd be okay, big bro. I just knew it. You're so strong; you're the strongest person I know."

"Thanks," he says, because that sounds like a compliment, at least, and it seems like the right thing to say. "I'm, uh—I'm sorry I worried you."

"It's okay. The important thing is that you're back now." She shifts her grip so that she's only holding one of his hands, and then tugs him gently down the hallway. "Come on, let's go meet the others."

It's a good thing she's leading, Jounouchi thinks, because every single hallway she leads him down looks exactly the same. Steel paneling for the walls, cold white tiled floors, and those same glaring fluorescent bulbs. Whoever designed this place has the worst taste in interior design, he's pretty sure.

Of course, it's not really a "place" so much as it is a "vehicle." He never would have guessed from inside, but when Shizuka tugs him out into the sun—and it says something about how godawful the lights inside are to see that the sun is somehow _less_ bright—he sees that they had been inside a giant blimp. He frowns at it over his shoulder before he looks back at Shizuka, but before he can ask her what the Hell they were doing inside a blimp, he catches sight of what she's looking at.

"That," he says after a moment, "is the fugliest thing I think I have ever seen." Granted, he can't remember much of what he's seen, but . . .

The tower stretches so high into the sky he has to crane his neck back to look at it, and like apparently every other structure or air ship on this island, it looks to be built entirely out of steel. For the most part, the tower is ramrod straight, but every so often up the massive structure steel beams jut out in sharp corners. Beside him, Shizuka nods.

"It's . . . a bit intimidating, huh?" she says, and Jounouchi is pretty sure the word he actually used was 'fugly,' but— "Mokuba-kun told me that Kaiba-san had it built years ago, after their stepfather passed away."

Part of Jounouchi wants to ask just who 'Mokuba-kun' and 'Kaiba-san' are, but he thinks this is probably something he is supposed to know, given how casually she dropped the names, and he doesn't feel like explaining to her just why he _doesn't_ recognize those names yet. So instead he says, "Huh. Looks like that Kaiba guy was compensating for something."

Shizuka laughs, and the sound is sudden—surprised. He looks over in time to see her put her fist in front of her mouth, but although she says nothing, her fist can't entirely hide her smile. Jounouchi grins himself.

Better a smile than tears.

Thankfully—and he wasn't even aware he was worried about it until relief hits him like a water balloon to the face—there's an elevator inside. It takes forever for it to arrive, no doubt because it has to come down all the way from the top, but as they wait Jounouchi finds he's not bothered by it. In fact, as he looks up and sees the elevator descending through the glass paneling, he feels his nerves kickstart his heart into an anxious drumbeat against his rib cage. Maybe, he thinks, the elevator shouldn't come at all. Maybe it should just break. Maybe he should leave. Shizuka can come with, if she wants. She is apparently his sister, after all.

"And now to ride it all the way back up," Shizuka says, when a soft _ding_ announces the arrival of the elevator and she pulls him inside. She seems cheerful as anything as she jabs the 'up' button with her finger, and finally releases his hand to clasp her own behind her back. "It'll be just as long of a ride up, but we still might be able to catch the end of Yuugi-san and Kaiba-san's duel."

"Right," Jounouchi says, and as the elevator starts up, he asks before he can stop himself, "So, this duel—is it some kind of fight?"

Shizuka blinks at him, and she looks taken aback a moment before she says, "Um . . . yes, I guess you could say that. It's more of a fight than I ever thought it would be, at least. I always thought it was just a game." She smiles, but somehow she still looks sad as she stares down at her shoes. "I was . . . I mean, I've still had . . . fun," she says slowly. "I was so excited to see you play before, and it was still—I mean, I don't regret coming, not at all, I'm really glad I've gotten to be here, especially with everything that happened, but I . . ." Shizuka shrugs. "I guess I just never realized how dangerous Duel Monsters could be."

Somehow Jounouchi thinks the word _monsters_ should have clued her into the danger inherent in whatever this is, but he's less worried about Shizuka not thinking about prior danger and more worried about the fact that they're apparently headed to a duel with monsters when neither of them have any kind of weapons to speak of. He pats down his pockets, and is unsurprised but still agitated when he comes up with nothing.

Shizuka frowns at him. "Big bro, is something wrong?"

"What? Oh, uh—" Yes, actually, a whole lot of things are really freakin' wrong. "No, I was just—thinking."

Shizuka smiles, but she folds her arms across her stomach, and places one elbow in her opposite hand so she can chew on her thumbnail. He's passed his nervousness onto her, he thinks, but considering they're apparently going to interrupt a monster duel, Jounouchi thinks maybe that's for the best.

They're quiet for the next few minutes, and just as Shizuka starts to ask, "Hey, why did you ask—?" the elevator shudders to a stop. Shizuka drops her arms to her sides, and as the elevator doors slide open Jounouchi is about to ask her to lead the way, only to see there's no need.

The elevator doors opened at the very top of the tower. A raised platform is in the middle, and to say it's ginormous is something of an understatement. People are crowded around the platform: Short Hair, Spike, and Diva are all present, as well as a woman with dark skin and long black hair who looks like a princess, and a crazy looking dude with ash blond hair spiked in all directions, who—despite the manic leer on his face—somehow resembles the princess. Well, family resemblance or not, she might be a Princess, but there is no way in hell that dude is a prince, Jounouchi decides. Creepy Ass Motherfucker, maybe, but definitely not a prince. There's a kid, too, Jounouchi realizes, as the raised platform in the middle lowers to ground level. The kid looks like he's maybe a couple years younger than Shizuka, with long black hair. The look on his face as the raised platform finally hits the deck suggests someone just ran over his puppy.

"Judging from the look on Mokuba-kun's face, I'd say Kaiba-san lost," Shizuka says, and she seems to notice the look of confusion on Jounouchi's face, because she points at the kid with long dark hair. "He looks really upset . . . maybe I should say something."

"Oh." So the kid is 'Mokuba-kun.' Okay, well, that's two names, then. Two names down . . . everyone else to go. Why can't these people address each other by name more often? "Uh, yeah. Maybe you should."

Shizuka gives him a strange look, but with the previously raised platform now on level with the rest of them again, she doesn't have a chance. Two people stand in the very middle of the tower: One on the far end, with a long white coat and a scowl twisting his face that tells Jounouchi that the guy plainly wants to set the guy across from him on fire, and the other with his back to Jounouchi, a blue jacket tied like a cape around his shoulders, and hair that spiked up in five different directions, like a star. Given what Shizuka said before, one of these guys is named Kaiba, while the other is named Yuugi. Now all Jounouchi has to do is figure out which is which.

The second the platform hit ground level, Short Hair, Spike, and Diva Boy all ran over to Star Hair's side, while the kid—Mokuba—bolted to Perma-Scowl's with all the speed of a hurt cat. Jounouchi plans on hanging back—maybe he can at least figure out Perma-Scowl and Star Hair if he just watches and listens—but Shizuka touches a hand to his elbow to urge him forward, and he realizes that's not really an option. Everyone back on the blimp expected him up here, right? And now that he's here, he doesn't really have a good excuse to back out. So he starts forward, though he makes it no more than two steps before Short Hair looks at him, smiles excitedly, and then touches Star Hair's shoulder before pointing right over at Jounouchi.

Oh boy. Here it comes.

Star Hair turns, sees him from across the tower, and—

Jounouchi blinks.

Huh. That was . . . huh.

It's weird, and in the next second he's sure he imagined it—his head is still killing him, after all, and there's a lot of wind on this tower, and it was only a split second, but it almost looked like—Star Hair's facial features looked somehow sharper before, even as his eyes widened. They'd looked sharper . . . more severe. But in a second, they softened. They are softer now, his eyes wider, his expression more youthful, more hopeful, his eyes wide and a smile bigger than that blimp on his face as he bolts straight across the tower top to—

—oh—

Star Hair crashes into him with enough force to nearly knock him back into the elevator, and he's so short that he can't even reach Jounouchi's neck, so it's all he can do to wrap his arms around Jounouchi's chest—which hurts even worse now, given that the guy just slammed his entire body weight into it with the force of that hug. The air leaves Jounouchi's lungs in a wheeze, and across the tower Short Hair, Spike, and Diva Boy are all laughing.

Yeah, Jounouchi thinks. Thanks, guys.

It doesn't help, either, that Star Hair is wearing something big, gold, heavy, and _sharp_ around his neck. When he pulls away, Jounouchi sees that it's some sort of upside down pyramid, though there are a lot of strange lines—cracks?—through it that make it look like it was once in pieces. Well, whatever it was, it stabbed straight into Jounouchi's stomach when Star Hair hugged him, so, _ouch_.

"Jounouchi-kun," Star Hair says, and his voice is thick with something that sounds a lot like happiness, if not for the tears building in his eyes. So, he made Shizuka laugh, but he made this guy cry—only this guy is also smiling, so maybe it isn't all bad? Jounouchi can only hope. He really isn't good with this whole crying business, not when he still has no idea what is going on. (Although, he thinks, there are no monsters in sight, so that's good at least.) "I'm so glad you're—I knew it, I knew the second Other Me played the Red-Eyes Black Dragon that you'd be—"

"The what now?" Jounouchi asks, and really, that was just his luck, isn't it? 'Oh, there are no monsters' he thinks, and then no, they start talking about _dragons_. Star Hair blinks at him, and he confused for only a second before he realizes something.

"Oh, you must not have seen—I played your Red-Eyes Black Dragon. It's what let me win against Kaiba-kun," he says, as if that explains everything when it, in fact, explains nothing. "You helped me win, Jounouchi-kun, just like I knew you would."

"Oh, uh . . . you're welcome," he says, because if he helped Star Hair win then he supposes 'you're welcome' is the appropriate response, even though his head is kind of spinning at the idea that he somehow apparently owns a freakin' _dragon_. Was that why he was apparently hospitalized by an Egyptian God (or by a card, he still isn't sure which is which)? Was it because he tried to fight it with a dragon and lost?

Star Hair shakes his head. "No, that doesn't matter now. What matters is that you're back. You're finally back." A few tears spill down Star Hair's cheeks, but he wipes them away quickly enough before he says. "I don't know what I would have done if you'd . . ."

The others have come closer now: Short Hair, Spike, and Diva Boy, and Perma-Scowl has started heading across toward the elevator with Mokuba hot on his heels. Princess follows them, but Creepy Ass Motherfucker takes Perma-Scowl's spot on the platform.

The time has come, Jounouchi realizes. They're all looking at him expectantly, and it looks like something just ended and something else is just starting, and he . . . should know all of this, shouldn't he, he shouldn't be completely lost and wondering just what the Hell is going on, but he is, and apparently watching and listening isn't going to make any of this less of a giant knotted ball of crazy cakes, it isn't going to make it any better. So he takes a deep breath and runs a hand through his hair before he says:

"Uh, okay—look. I, uh—this is going to sound really bad, and also probably kind of mean, because judging from the way you just reacted and all I get the feeling we're supposed to be pretty close, so I'm sorry, but I'm pretty lost here, so I have to ask . . ." Jounouchi looks straight into Star Hair's eyes, and forces himself to look past the worried confusion he sees there so he can ask, "Who . . . are you?"

Everything, save the wind, seems to stop. Star Hair stares at Jounouchi, and it's for all the world like Jounouchi has just sprouted a dragon from his _head_ and this is some sign of a terminal condition for how shocked and despaired that stare looks. It almost hurts Jounouchi to see Star Hair looking that upset, but he thinks that probably has more to do with the guilt of letting someone down than any sort of personal attachment.

There isn't much time to think on it, anyway, because in the next second the air explodes.

"Hey, that isn't funny!" Short Hair says, and she glares furiously at Jounouchi. Beside her, Spike looks just as angry, and Jounouchi is suddenly reminded that Diva Boy had previously suggested Spike punch him _again_. "Do you have any idea what Yuugi went through after you collapsed? How could you say something like that to him after all that?"

Ah, so Star Hair was Yuugi, then. Which meant the other guy must be—

"Yeah, man, this really isn't the time for any kind of sick jokes," Spike snaps, and Jounouchi raises both of his hands in a placating gesture.

"I'm not joking—I swear, I'm not!" he says, as Short Hair opens her mouth to no doubt yell at him some more. "Look, I wouldn't say something like that as a joke, all right? I don't know what kind of guy you think I am—or what kind of guy I _am_ that you would think that, but I honestly have no clue who this guy is, except that apparently his name is Yuugi." He looks down to see that this has done nothing but make Yuugi look even more hurt, and he winces. "Uh, sorry, dude."

"You're _about_ to be a lot more sorry if you don't knock it off," Short Hair growls.

Beside her, Diva Boy shakes his head. "Yeah. I didn't even think you would ever sink to the point of treating your best friend like this, Jounouchi," he says.

"I'm not—ugh." Jounouchi puts his head in his hands for a second before he looks up again. "I'm sorry, I really am, but I honest to any freaking god except the one that apparently hospitalized me have no idea who _any_ of you are." At the shock and indignation that crosses their faces, he puts a hand to his chest and says, "And if it helps, I don't even really know who _I_ am except for some basic facts I read off Doc's medical sheet when I looked at his clipboard. Seriously, I have no freaking clue what any of this is, or what I'm doing here, or where _here_ is, or even what _century_ it is given that it looks like we have a lot of tech, but everyone is standing around here talking about duels and dragons like we're in medieval times or something. I don't know anything about anything that's happening here, pretty much at all."

"Well, at least you can finally admit it," Perma-Scowl says, and at this point Jounouchi has pretty much deduced that Perma-Scowl's name is Kaiba, but— "Amnesia, hm? How droll. It seems that despite my loss, God still saw fit to give me a consolation prize."

Well. Perma-Scowl's real name might be Kaiba, but it looks like _someone_ just earned himself a new nickname. "Congratulations, Dickface," Jounouchi says.

Dickface spares him only one cold look before he sweeps past them all toward the elevator. Mokuba lingers just enough to give Shizuka a look Jounouchi can't read before he darts after Dickface, and Princess follows both of them to the elevator.

"You . . . you really don't remember anything?"

It's Yuugi's voice that makes Jounouchi turn back around, and now he sees that the present company's expressions range from disbelief to horror. Short Hair's hands cover her mouth, her eyes wide and disbelieving, while Spike looks torn between cold clocking Jounouchi and shaking sense into him. Jounouchi glances over to his right to see that Shizuka is staring at the floor and that she's trembling head to foot, silent tears spilling down her cheeks.

Great. He made her cry again. What is it with him and making people cry? How is he this good at screwing up?! He hasn't even been awake for an hour!

But all he can say in response to Yuugi's question is: "No." He knows that's _not_ the answer they want to hear, it's not one that'll do anyone on that tower any good, but it's the only one he can give.

Yuugi swallows hard, his eyes wide and pleading. "Nothing?" he asks. "Nothing at all? Not—not _anything_?"

"No," Jounouchi repeats. He raises one hand to run it through his hair again. "Look, maybe—"

"What about—what about Duelist Kingdom?" Yuugi asks, before Jounouchi can finish his thought, let alone his sentence. "Remember that? We had to go to Pegasus' island, and we were there for two days. I had to duel him to free my grandpa's soul, and you were fighting to get money for Shizuka's operation—"

"You had an operation?" Jounouchi asks, before he can help it, but Shizuka doesn't look at him. She just nods, and Anzu crosses behind Yuugi to go wrap her arms around Shizuka's shoulders. Damn it, Jounouchi's pretty sure he just made it worse.

"W-What about Battle City? Or everything that happened in Otogi's game shop—the Black Crown?" Yuugi presses. Jounouchi looks back at him, and he guesses Yuugi can tell by his expression that none of that means anything to him, because Yuugi continues, his voice cracking a little with what sounds a hell of a lot like desperation. "We—there was that time we went to the arcade, and that guy stole my Puzzle. Remember that? You got it back for me. Or the time when Honda-kun had a crush on Ribbon-chan, and so we went to the game shop to get that puzzle for her—"

"We don't need to bring that up again," Spike mutters—and his name must be Honda, for him to react to that. Well, that or Ribbon-chan, but somehow Jounouchi thinks that isn't right.

"—or—or that time Hirutani's gang attacked us with yo-yos, because Nezumi-kun said he'd been attacked and so we went to help him. Remember? He led us back to that warehouse, and we knew the second we stepped in what it was, but we were too late, and we got jumped. We ended up fighting our way out—you took on Hirutani yourself. You . . . you remember that, right?"

Jounouchi shakes his head, and shoves his hands in his pockets. "No."

Yuugi grips the heavy yellow pyramid around his neck in a grip so tight his knuckles look pale. "But . . . you . . ." He stares at the pyramid for a moment before he looks back up at Jounouchi with a renewed determination that, honestly, Jounouchi respects no matter how lost this cause looks. "What about Death-T, then?" Yuugi asks. "Remember that? It was Kaiba-kun's theme park—what KaibaLand was before he made it what it is now."

"I—"

"Think about it," Yuugi insists, and his voice is firm, but Jounouchi can still hear the plea there. "Please, Jounouchi-kun, think really, really hard. Think about the room with the falling blocks. Don't you remember? When we were in there, you told me, after telling me about how you gave me the last piece of my Puzzle, you told me that you would never—"

"Forget?" Jounouchi guesses, and Yuugi clamps his mouth shut. The look on Yuugi's face tells Jounouchi that's the wrong answer. He kicks his foot against the floor. "Look, I'm really sorry, but I just—I don't remember, okay? Any of it. None of it rings any bells, pretty much at all." He looks over at Shizuka. She's still remarkably silent for someone who is crying, but maybe that's because her tears are muffled by Anzu's shirt. "She's my own sister and I don't remember a thing about her. I had to look on the med chart just to get her name."

"You can't be serious . . ." Honda says quietly, and for the first time, Jounouchi thinks maybe _he's_ the one that feels like hitting someone.

"Yeah, because you know me, I really love making everyone from my apparent little sister to my supposed best friend bawl their eyes out by making them just _think_ I don't know them from some guys off the street. It's pretty much my favorite thing to do," he says. Then again, for all he knows, that _is_ something he likes to do—or liked to do before all this, anyway, but he can say for sure it's not something he enjoys doing _now_.

Yuugi is staring at that gold pyramid again, and he's squeezing it so hard Jounouchi's a bit afraid he's going to break it apart. Tears are starting to build in Yuugi's eyes, and the look on his face suggests he's about to completely snap one way or the other, but before Jounouchi can say anything about it, Yuugi looks up, and he fixes Jounouchi with a stare that can really only be described as utter desperation.

"It's something that's in plain sight, but it's invisible," he says, and, okay, of all the things Jounouchi expected, that was not it.

"Uh—say what?"

"It's something that's in plain sight, but it's invisible," Yuugi repeats. Silence passes between them for a beat, and Yuugi doesn't bother to wipe the tears that start to fall fast from his eyes as he stares at Jounouchi, looking for all the world like his entire life depends on the paradox he just opened to the room. "Y-You—you know what that means, right? What the answer is?" Jounouchi doesn't answer—because, god, what _is_ the answer, what does that even _mean_ , why is Yuugi apparently giving him some kind of _homework_ when Jounouchi just learned his own _name_ twenty minutes ago?—and Yuugi's next words come out sounding a lot more like a sob than anything else. "Jounouchi-kun, _please_ , you _have_ to—"

"I . . . I'm . . ." Jounouchi shakes his head, and that seems to be all it takes. Yuugi's face crumples as a broken, despairing sob breaks from his throat, and although Jounouchi reaches out to him—because he didn't mean for this to happen, he doesn't want to hurt anyone—he can't bring himself to actually step forward, not when he can't offer anything real in the way of consolation. It doesn't matter, anyway; both Honda and Diva Boy flank Yuugi, but they barely have time to touch his shoulder before a chilling laugh cuts through the air, and Yuugi sucks in a sharp breath at the sound.

Oh.

Jounouchi forgot that Creepy Ass Motherfucker is still on top of the tower.

"It's always nice to see what the shadows sow," Creepy Ass Motherfucker says, and maybe it's the wind carrying it, but its weird how easy is to hear him given how far away he is, and that he doesn't seem to be shouting. "I admit, I was disappointed at first to see that you'd survived, Jounouchi. But now I'm glad. It was worth it to see this."

Yuugi's arms are wrapped tightly around himself, and his tears are still shining on his cheeks, his eyes tightly shut—but although his voice is thick, Jounouchi hears him whisper, "Shut up."

"Aren't you glad, Yuugi?" Creepy Ass Motherfucker taunts—and it is, it's a taunt, and that pisses Jounouchi off if for no other reason than who the Hell taunts someone when they're crying? Assholes, that's who. "Jounouchi isn't actually dead. Isn't that what you wanted? To have him live? Well, rejoice: it seems God spared his life today. Although it seems not even Ra bestows His blessings for free. I suppose given the circumstances you could think of Jounouchi as 'something that is right in front of you, but you can't reach hi—'"

"Shut _up_!"

The shout is more of a roar, and it's at both a level of volume and commanding that Jounouchi would have never expected from someone so small. Jounouchi has only a second to see the pure hate in Yuugi's eyes as he spins around, his jacket-cape flaring, and the device attached to his arm suddenly shifts and locks into a different position. He doesn't spare the rest of them a second look before he stalks back toward the middle platform, his fingers balled into fists, and Jounouchi's pretty sure that someone is about to get punched in the face, and that someone isn't Yuugi.

 _Well,_ he amends, looking at the difference between their heights, _maybe more like punched in the stomach._

"So you're finally ready to play, Pharaoh?" Creepy Ass Motherfucker asks, and Jounouchi frowns, because—Pharaoh? Isn't Yuugi Japanese? And, yeah, his posture and everything looks a lot different now—looked different the second he shouted at Creepy Ass Motherfucker to shut up—but—

"I'm ready to finish this," Yuugi says—snarls, really, and yeah, something weird is going on. "Prepare yourself, Malik. It's time to play a _Game_."

"Uh." Jounouchi looks over at Shizuka to see that she's staring at central platform like a rabbit might look at an approaching wolf, before he turns to look at Honda and Diva Boy. "What's going on? What's up with Yuugi? And should we do something, because not for nothing, but although Yuugi looks pretty pissed right now, that creepy ass motherfucker looks nine shots over crazy. If anyone's gonna fight him, I think it should probably _not_ be Yuugi."

Honda fixes Jounouchi with a solid, inscrutable look before he says, "That 'creepy ass motherfucker' is the reason why you are the way you are right now. He's the reason you almost died. I think it doesn't matter what we say or do; Yuugi's going to take him on no matter what."

"And he's going to win," Diva Boy says.

"Damn straight he is," Short Hair says quietly, and Jounouchi glances at them both in turn before he looks at the platform that is once again raising above the tower.

There's no way to stop it now, he guesses, and everyone present seems to have faith in Yuugi's skills, but—

Well.

Jounouchi just hopes they're right.


End file.
